Peter “Pete the Street” Brown

Peter brown is British painter, whose dedication to location painting and penchant for working in all manner of weather conditions, often in the streets in the midst of the bustle of city activity, has earned him the nickname of “Pete the Street”.

Brown paints in his home base of Bath in southwestern England, and on his frequent visits to London and other UK cities, as well as his travels abroad.

He has developed a wonderfully economical approach, driven by the limitations of location painting and honed by many years in the field. He defines his forms with gestural brush marks — laid down over a foundation of solid draftsmanship — in a manner that suggests that no strokes are wasted.

Brown’s colors also bear witness to his history of location painting, ringing true to the light and atmosphere of all manner of atmospheric conditions.

His urban compositions are strongly geometric, and suggest an uncommon ability to find subjects almost anywhere. His scenes of the countryside and seaside also simplify and reduce value masses into strong basic forms. His views down city streets and country lanes often feel as though they are inviting you to walk into them.

Brown frequently works on large and sometimes severely horizontal canvasses, creating panoramic impressions of his subject.

There are short videos of Brown working, some of them previews for available DVDs, that show him on location and painting in snow and rain. Brown has a number of videos and book collections available from his site, and is working on a new collection of his paintings of London.

On his website, you can browse through his exhibitions sections, or use the search feature for more extensive browsing. Don’t be put off by the complex search form that dominates the “Paintings for Sale” and “Search Works” sections, you can simply scroll down in the former, or submit a default search in the latter, and browse through the listings at the bottom of the page like a normal online gallery, with links to multiple pages at the bottom.